


Belarus

by Shayvaalski



Series: The Kids Are Alright [13]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/F, Parentlock, The Family Business, sebastian moran and tommy o'doyle: minders of highly sensitive people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-06 23:28:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1112780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shayvaalski/pseuds/Shayvaalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Siobhan Moran begins to take over the family business when she is two years out of Uni.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belarus

After university Siobhan takes odd jobs, teaching; and between those there are other jobs. The family business, she tells anyone who asks, and then laughs--a light gentle laugh that makes Tommy blink long and slow. Then she’ll say “My mum...” and pause, and smile, and continue, “Family joke, sorry; you might have heard of him? Jimmy Moran, he’s published a few novels? I help him with the research sometimes.” 

Everyone believes her, and no one thinks to question it when she vanishes to Istanbul or Melbourne. Even when none of Jimmy Moran’s books have anything to do with Turkey or Australia. People don’t think like that, she tells him on the plane, her hand restless on his arm. They just don’t. Give them all the pieces, Tommy, and they won’t even notice they’re from different puzzles. 

They always fly first-class, and even in first-class Siobhan rolls her head against the headrest, unsettled. On the way home she will be soft, heavy with pleasure, sprawled over the seat, but on the way out her fingers trace the muscles of Tommy’s forearm where they join into his elbow. He can’t tell if she’s amused or angry. It’s only their fourth trip alone—Siobhan is only twenty-three. Already she is sliding into her mum’s skin; her mum who is a nightmare on all kinds of transit. 

\-----

 

In Belarus he does the timezone math and calls Sebastian from the balcony while Siobhan takes a bath with the door half-open. 

“You make it there okay?”

“Yessir.” 

Sebastian chuckles, and Tommy can hear him shift the phone from one side to the other, tuck it against his shoulder. 

“Tough trip?”

He must hesitate an instant too long before denying it, because Sebastian stops moving around the kitchen (Tommy can tell where he is from the sound of water, of flatware; he must be doing dishes) and says, “Tell me everything’s on track, lad.” 

Tommy makes an exasperated sound that sounds unnervingly like Sebastian even to him; it brings both of them up short for a heartbeat, then he says, “ _Ar ndóigh_. Picked up the contact details right after we got in and Siobhan’s meeting her tonight.”

He can hear the man who isn’t exactly his father grinning. “Course she is. What cover you using this run?”

“Lovers.” He makes a face. “But not like usual. She’s playing gay so I’m playing bear.”

“Her hair’s not going to be short enough for that much longer.” There’s a pause, the right length for Seb to take a sip of tea. “Bit surreal when they swap, isn’t it?”

Tommy shrugs. Siobhan is something both more and less than gender; when he looks at her he sees Moriarty, not however she’s presenting that day. Her scent is the same. Clean. Metallic. Astringent. But he nods anyway, leaning on the rail of the balcony and gazing out over the Minsk skyline. “Looks like Mr. Moran, which is a bit of a nasty shock first thing in the morning.”

Sebastian laughs. “First time Jim answered the door in drag I thought he had a twin. You get used to it.”

He shifts; there’s nothing to get used to.  _Is é sí an rud atá sí._ On the other end, in Ireland, Sebastian takes another swallow of tea; it’s early afternoon there, and Jim must be out for Seb to be lingering over a cuppa. The silence is as comfortable over the phone as it is in person, and Tommy, watching the hotel room through his lashes, is momentarily content. 

“Right,” Sebastian says, eventually. “I’ll let you go. Give us a call when you’re back in London, Jim’ll want a debrief.”

Tommy hangs up without answering, and a few seconds later Siobhan says in a lilting singsong voice, “Tell me she’s handsome, Tommy-boy, I  _despise_  when mum makes it hard for me to flirt.”

He pushes off the rail, snagging the file on the way to the bathroom, and ruffles through it standing in the doorway. Siobhan looks at him expectantly, stretched full-length in the warm water; after a moment, he holds up a photo. She squints. Then with one thin hand Siobhan shoves her hair out of her eyes, and grins a fox’s grin.

“He’s so good to me,” she drawls, and stands up out of the bath. “I suppose I should bring him a matryoshka or something equally cultural.” 

Tommy hands her a towel, his slow smile echoing hers, and then as she wraps it around herself he picks up another. Siobhan dips her head automatically, and he rough-dries her hair, the bones of her skull delicate beneath his palms. After a few seconds she makes a dissatisfied noise and pulls away. He hands her a comb, and a few minutes later Siobhan drops both towels, a neat part on the left side of her head, and steps to the closet, where Tommy has already hung her suits, and his. 

She slips first into black  silk underclothes (Aunt Irene’s recommendation, Tommy knows, and spares a moment to be amused), and then Siobhan puts her head on one side, glances at the photograph again, and says, “Low heels or high, do you think?”

This is the cue for him to pick up the dossier labelled  _Василиса_ , translating the Cyrillic name automatically--the drilling having sunk in at last, five months ago--before he says anything out loud to Siobhan. “Low,” he says after a moment. “Vasilisa’s only a little taller than you, and your mum wants an alliance, not intimidation.”

She nods, thoughtfully, and then asks, “Trousers?”

Tommy flips through the two-page profile, frowning. “You tell me. Your agent here says she seems to respect masculinity, but Russia’s a shit place for explicit nonconformism and Belarus still isn’t that far removed in opinion. Or distance.”

Siobhan looks at him disdainful and dismissive, all black eyes and Moriarty, secure in the knowledge of untouchability; he shrugs. “You asked.”

“Shut up.” But she doesn’t sound savage yet, so he glances back down and says, “Trousers. But the scoop-neck blouse under your jacket, not the button-down.” 

She laughs, reaches for the blood-red silk that shows just the merest edge of her collarbones, and holds it up against her chest. “You fill some stereotypes so  _nicely,_  Thomas.”

He closes the file as she pulls on trousers and shirt, then stands to hold Siobhan’s jacket open for her to slip into. Tommy leaves his hands on her shoulders for an instant, just to get a sense of her, the way she vibrates under him; Siobhan twists away almost instantly with a snarl on her mouth, unvoiced. 

\------

 

Late that night, when Tommy is already almost asleep, she comes to curl against him. He pulls her in instinctively; and then blinks, sits up halfway, and stares at the back of her head, the tight lines of her shoulders. She’s supposed to be in the next room. With  Vasilisa . Getting the extra room had been an amused guess when he called from Ireland, and it had paid off, but—

“Saoiste?”

He can hear the tightness in his own voice. They’re five years out from almost losing her, but it’s not long enough, it will  _never_  have been long enough, and Tommy presses his tongue against his teeth.  Siobhan makes a kind of hissing whine,  _shut up and let me sleep;_ he settles back down, not quite all the way, and gathers her against his chest. Her palms ghost over Tommy’s ribs. 

“Well?” he asks, almost too low to hear. Her shrug is only the slightest motion, and then Siobhan tilts her head up so her eyes catch the glint of light from the street.  

“ _Boring.”_ Her voice is very low and very Irish, and he can hear Jim’s hiss in it. Tommy waits. Sometimes waiting works, with her and her mother both; and Tommy has known this so long he doesn’t even remember being taught. 

Finally, Siobhan interlocks her knees with his, bare legs sliding against his pajama bottoms. “I left her alive, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Glad to hear it,” Tommy says, neutral. Her laugh against his chest is savage, and Siobhan stretches all along his length. Almost delicately, his palms settle into place on her back, and she twists like a cat unsure whether or not to unsheathe its claws. This at least is familiar, so he risks asking, “Alive and in one piece?”

“In one piece and  _pleased.”_  Siobhan rolls her eyes. “Give me a little credit.” Fingers curl into his shirt, and the mood dissipates like smoke. She grins. Tommy rolls onto his back and pulls her with him, his eyes mostly closed now that the immediate crisis is over; Siobhan props her chin up on her folded hands. 

“You worry too much.”

“ _Sure_ , saoiste,” he says, with just the faintest hint of the lilt Jim uses to mock. The blink he receives in return is slow and not quite surprised, and she leans one knee into him. After a moment Siobhan traces his collar, fingers lingering over the seams, the join of it into his shirt. For a long time he just breathes beneath her slight weight—long enough, almost, to fall asleep again. When she shifts he doesn’t even open his eyes. 

Siobhan’s mouth presses soft against his throat. “You worry too much,” she repeats. “Things with  Vasilisa went off like a dream. I’m a  _Moriarty_ , angel, how else were they going to go?”

“Go to sleep, Bhan,” he murmurs, and strokes the soft short hair at the nape of her neck. She makes a little offended noise, and a shiver goes through Siobhan’s body before it slips off him and onto the mattress, lax. Within a few moments her breath evens out. Tommy waits for her muscles to unlock, for her hand to drop from his chest and curl against her own collarbones. Then he fishes for his phone. Sebastian’s number is first on the list, like it has been since he was eleven and panicking trying to remember the last four digits while Siobhan ripped a chair to pieces. 

_Safe_ , he types, one-handed, and nothing else. There’s no answer. There doesn’t need to be an answer; they’ve long since developed a system for Siobhan. After a few seconds, an automatic _message read_ blinks onto Tommy’s screen, glowing in the dim room, and his mouth quirks up just the smallest bit.

He deletes the outgoing text, almost without thinking. 

\------

 

“ _Hi,_  mum.”

Siobhan’s voice sounds easy for the first time in days and Tommy wanders into the room, a glass of whiskey in his hand. She’s lounged out on the couch, not even looking at the screen; on the screen Jim is not looking at her. He can’t see Seb, but it’s unlikely he’s not there. 

“It went well, I take it.”

She rests her cheek against an out-flung arm and yawns, blinks slowly at the fire on the hearth. At home, on her own ground, Siobhan is almost a different person. “It did. She’ll be in contact regularly from now on, through the Polish contingent.”

“Good girl.” Jim makes eye contact with her briefly, then goes back to fiddling with some sort of circuit laid out on the kitchen table. Tommy leans on the back of the couch. Neither of them acknowledge he’s there; after a moment of listening to them, of following the cant of Jim’s body—two degrees left, one forward—he can tell where Sebastian is, perhaps a foot away from Jim, in the other chair. Probably listening, maybe cleaning a gun or tracing the wood grain, thoughtlessly, the way Tommy has watched him do for twenty years. 

He glances down. The line of her shoulders is almost relaxed; she is almost soft around the edges in a way she never is except with Jim. In a way he never is except with her. 

After a moment he moves away from the couch, towards the armchair, then drops into it, keeping his glass carefully balanced. 

And Siobhan, never looking away from the flames, refocuses. 

**Author's Note:**

> This features the Moriarty approach to gender, as previous fics have featured the Moriarty approach to sexuality. Blue and I know it isn't a choice—but it is for them, okay.


End file.
